Dull
by marzoog
Summary: She once heard that love comes in the most unexpected places, and now she knows it’s true. Salvation is not an easy thing, but with him it might come in the onset of distillation of barriers. (Gertrude OliverRobert Grant)


** Disclaimer: I do not pretend to be affiliated to the heirs of LM Montgomery, and this was sorely for fun, no copyright infringement is intended. **

**Dull**

_Life, _she thinks_, is dull. _

_It is mild, instead of sharp, rounded instead of edgy, and boils into such muddle that she wonders if it is really a fancy recipe for mud. It's real grainy rock slush, and little pebbles that are mushy in the texture. _

_She wakes up to the same sun, in the same bed, around the same things every same day. The road she walks on to the schoolhouse is the same. The schoolhouse will always be in the middle of the same grove of trees, near the same houses. _

_The same kids will sit in the same seats. She will teach the same things she learned as a child, everyday. And she will walk back down that same road, one which has no bend. _

**O&O&O&**

"What is a lovely lady such as yourself doing making taffy instead of dancing?"

"Do you always say that to girls when you lack a partner?"

"Not always, no. I only speak the truth."

"Somehow, that I doubt in this case."

"A smooth talker, eh? I like that in women." He moved closer.

"I don't like it in men." She moved back.

"You owe me a dance."

"I owe you no such thing."

"Oh, there you are," a tall man with honey colored hair who she'd never seen before came over from the other side of the room, saying rather loudly, "I'm sorry it took me so long. Shall we?" He held out his arm and smiled.

"Of course." She smiled back, walking on to the dance floor and leaving her terrorizer in shock.

**O&O&O&**

"Thank you for doing that," she said gliding in the man's arms.

"My pleasure. I don't know why they allowed men like that to come."

"I'm sure Mrs. Grant wouldn't want him here at this party, especially since it's for her son's return."

"I'm sure he wouldn't either."

"I guess so. I've never met him. I was only invited because I met Mrs. Grant at a party last year, and in an odd way I guess she took pity on me."

"Pity on you?"

"Well, you see, because I teach I don't get to parties much."

"Oh, well, I'm sure Mrs. Grant is glad you came."

"If I knew her son she might be…"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, I assume her son would want to know everyone here. Do you know him?"

"Yes, you could say I know him very well."

"I could say so? Why wouldn't I say so?"

The man merely laughed, and continued their dancing.

**O&O&O&**

The man continued talking to her, even after their dance. Gertrude thought it odd he did not find another partner to dance with, for it seemed he knew everyone and would be in now lack of another girl to dance with.

In trying to tell him so, Gertrude realized something.

"You know, Mr….Mr…I don't even know your name. Do tell me it."

Gertrude smiled up at him.

"I-er..it's.."

"Robert!" huffed a voice from behind, "There you are, dear. I was just going to introduce you to our Miss Oliver, but I see you managed to make the introduction on your own."

"You're Robert Grant?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. I felt you wouldn't be comfortable if you knew who I was. Honestly, I'm sorry if I offended you. I wish just working to telling you now."

"I believe you. You're right, I would have been uncomfortable. I would have felt like I was stealing you away."

"So I thought."

"Well, I'll leave you too then, since it all seems to be settled." Mrs. Grant went to attend to the rest of the guests.

"So, you are the infamous hermit Gertrude Oliver."

"And you are the always well-meant and well-groomed Robert Grant."

Something in his eyes made Gertrude smile.

**O&O&O&**

Much later, just as she was leaving, he appeared by her side again.

"Gertrude Oliver?"

"Yes, Robert Grant?"

"I would like to see you again."

"I would like to see you again too."

"You can be found in your normal residence of hermitage, I presume."

"Presume away, Robert."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Will you be found there?"

"Yes, Robert. And do remember that we are not in Regency England. There's no need to talk like Mr. Darcy, or Edmund Bertram."

"I won't then. I was just trying to be polite."

"And I've just read too much Jane Austen."

"I knew someone would foil my plan."

"And what plan was that?"

"To charm a girl with Darcyesque language."

"You put forth a valiant effort, I'll give you that."

Laughing, Gertrude stumbled out into the night.

**O&O&O&**

_She knew that sometime it would happen. That sometime her frozen world would melt into a slush. She had not thought it would be in such a situation, in such a person as him. She once heard that love comes in the most unexpected places, and now she knows it's true. _

_Salvation is not an easy thing, but with him it might come in the onset of distillation of barriers. Barriers set by lonely nights, and too many books. By routine and hardship. By being dull.   
_

_Could anyone love her with her dullness? Something in the way his eyes sparkled seemed unreal. _

_Could happiness come so easily? _

**O&O&O&**

The next time she saw Robert Grant, he was in Charlottetown General Store, trying to buy a present for his younger sister. Confounded by the same problem as brothers universally, Robert had no idea whatsoever what to buy her.

"How old is she?" Gertrude snuck up on him.

"Gertrude!" He smiled in shock, "Who?"

"Your sister?"

"How did you….Oh, were you over listening?"

"As always." Gertrude felt very daring and bright with her wind rose checks.

"I can't seem to get any idea what she would want…"

"You and every brother that ever was or will be," Gertrude couldn't help laughing.

"So much for you to say. You women just buy us ties and call it a wonderful gift."

"Because we are wise and know you don't particularly care."

"I'm afraid that is the awful truth."

'Why is the truth so terribly awful?"

He laughed heartily.

"Well, most women don't appreciate that about us."

"I'm not most women."

"I can see that."

"Aha, buy apparently failed to make the connection between the two. Silly you."

"Gertrude," he asked, after the selections for his sister were made, "you seem different today. How is that?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I suppose that I am merely overly energetic from the excitement of the city."

"Oh, no. I did not mean to imply that the change is bad. It is just…different."

How much he smiled!

**O&O&O&**

"I am frightened," Gertrude confessed to her mirror-self, "I am afraid of happiness."

Robert Grant, as much as Gertrude hastened not to admit it, was making her happier than she had thought possible. His charm, his quiet humor, his bookishness, Gertrude felt the endless list of his aspiring qualities would make her quake with its weight.

Going to a party with Robert, a true Charlottetownian manner of cotillion, she found her heart overflowing with a mysterious strange honey sweet feeling. These months with Robert had been worth their weight in rare jewels or fragrant wildflowers.

Her dress was as lovely as she could afford. She had taken an idea from Amy March, making it full of tulle and flowers.

"I may not be fashionable," she confessed, "but I will feel pretty."

**O&O&O&**

_Happiness is only a barrier away,_ she sometimes thinks. If she can just get close enough to love, she might find it like a pearl in an oyster.

**O&O&O&**

"Goodbye, Gertrude Oliver." It was hard and cold, not the usual Robert at all.

"Goodbye, Robert Grant." Gertrude tried to sound more cheerful than ever, "I shall be seeing you soon then?"

"Oh, I very much doubt it."

And he whipped the horses, leaving Gertrude in a maelstrom of snow.

**O&O&O&**

_Robert_, they tell her she still sometimes says in her dreams, _Robert, what happened?_ _Why did you never see me again, Robert? What in the world made this happen?_

_Why have we not seen each for two years that have seemed so long? Am I so very dull?  
_

And she thinks, _I have lost that oyster_.

**O&O&O&**

The door bell rang.

Gertrude went to the door, secretly annoyed with being taken away from a new book. Books were her last comfort, it seemed. Happiness did no longer seem to exist out of the detachment.

"Ye-," the word was stopped on Gertrude's tongue as she saw who it was. Robert Grant stood on the doorstep.

"Hello, Gertrude."

"Rob-I…er..I.." She felt dizzy. Robert put a steadying hand on her arm, and guided her back into the house, her eyes still dilated with shock. "What are you doing here?"

"Calm down, sit. I'm sorry I startled you. I didn't mean to."

Sitting, Gertrude looked up at him dazedly.

"Why are you here? I'm assuming you did not wish to cause me heart attacks."

"No, Gertrude. That was never my intention." His meaning ran deeper than merely appearing on her doorstep.

"I know."

**O&O&O&**

_She had still thought of it often. The night of the dance, the broken glasses and splattered food, as well as a stiff looking old man who had asked her to dance. She saw the old man out, and while going to his buggy his son stepped out._

_The fateful moment happened. Gertrude tripped, and the young man helped her up. _

_And a shocked and bitterly hurt Robert Grant was not heard in the shadows, getting a bit of fresh air and waiting for the same Gertrude, who now appeared to be in the arms of another man. _

**O&O&O&**

"Gertrude?"

"What is it that you want, Robert?"

"What do I want? I want an explanation, of course."

"For what, Robert? What are you talking of?"

"The young man…The one who picked you up. I thought-I….er…assumed…Gertrude, have you ever been in love with a man?"

"Once, yes."

"Who?"

Gertrude looked at him hard in the eyes.

"With you, of course."

"What? Gertrude, I thought I-er.. saw…you…with another man. And it drove me furious. Gertrude, I couldn't walk, talk, eat, or sleep without thinking of you with someone else."

"Robert?"

"Yes?"

"Be quiet, dear. There was no one but you." A smile appeared. "We have been so, so silly these two years."

She started laughing, for what felt like the first time in years.

"Gertrude…" He hugged her tightly, "Oh, Gertrude, I can't tell you how sorry I am, I never can, I…"

She cut him off.

"Dear, just be quiet," she put her hand over his mouth, "Let's just sit here forever, you, me, this fire, the cats, and all the books, and just be," she moved yet closer to him, "…happy," she said, tasting the word.

**O&O&O&**

Letters are supposed to be good things, she has heard.

In a letter one that is used as one ought to use it, the solider should be brightened up, the letter should give them a sense of solid ground in a lost world, should comfort and help. Those are the kind of letter she likes.

This letter is evil.

It is the kind of letter she wants to throw into the dust like a snake, and never touch or see it again. She wants every particle of it to disintegrate into the wind.

_Robert….can't….be… dead… _

The thought feels like a stone wall against her head.

**O&O&O&**

_Robert_, they tell her she mumbles in her dreams, _Robert, where are you now? Underneath some blood tinted field "somewhere in __France__"? Have you ceased to exist? Where is your soul, Robert, for it was your soul I cared for? Is it drifting, or it is very close to me? _

_And how can I join you, wherever you are? _

**O&O&O&**

Seven days she counts on her calendar, in later days.

On the first day, the grief set as far as her skin. It hovered around her, pressed into her, surrounded her like an invisible sheet of sorrow. The pressure felt as if it could cave her in. She gives a little cry. She is a fish in shallow waters of a much deeper ocean.

On the second day, the grief went through her skin, into her cells. It walked with her as she went to the schoolhouse, and lived within her skin, surrounding her in a pinpointed way of grief, giving no breathing room. She is a fish in the water, swimming in cold dread.

On the third day, the grief fused itself into her blood. It came from the inside out, threatening to turnout her body as well as her life plans and soul on gable point. It is running through her. She is a fish learning to life inside its small body in the midst of much water.

On the fourth day, the grief is in her limbs. They will not move without ache, without pressure applied, without work. Breathing is work now. In. Out. In. Out. _Keep breathing_, she tells herself, _keep breathing_. She is a fish sinking fast.

On the fifth day, the grief is in her stomach. She sits on her bed, looking at Rainbow Valley. She takes books off the shelves, only to leave them open on her lap. She feels ill with realization. She is a fish lost.

On the sixth day, the grief is in her heart. It has pierced surely as any bullet. It sits there, hung on moving cords like a puppet, walking, walking, she paces and paces, and hopes that it will just drop dead. She is a fish in deep water, overcome.

On the seventh day the grief is in her eyes, which go black at the news. It oozes out with tears never before shed. It eases itself out of the heart, out of the stomach, the cells, and the skin. The ocean lies now in her pillow, in silent streams of outpouring salt.

And her heart is off the puppet cords.

**O&O&O&**

_Robert_, they tell her she says in her dreams, _we have hope now._ _We have our oyster, and we are going to find happiness's pearl. _

**O&O&O&**

She realizes something after all these strained years. After all the pacing and grief, the worry and letters, the praying and tears, life can know itself again. She goes to his room at the hospital, and knows that soon life will be dull again.

And as she walks in the door, she knows that a dull life with Robert is better than any life without him.

"Gertrude?" he mumbles in his sleep.

"I'm right here, Robert," she clutches his hand tighter, "I'm right here."

**O&O&O&**

_This new world is there in lackluster glory. There are still clear mornings with dew, sunsets of fire, dinner around a candle tinted table, stars in the night sky. _

_Dull, _she thinks_, is a relative term. Maybe dull is as far as you let it go. People said that Gertrude Oliver was a dull woman, a woman of too much feeling, of too few parties. They say she prefers reading (how odd!). _

_Gertrude no longer listens to them. She is happy, and doesn't understand why they will not content themselves being so as well. They should merely look for their oysters, and leave those like her who have already found it. _

_Robert comes every Friday night from __Charlottetown__. They sit around the fire at Ingleside and read, with cats all around. When either of them find something amusing or something beautiful they read it out loud. And look at each other with a smile. _

_Dull,_ she thinks now,_ is a good word. _

**O&O&O&**

AN Well, this fic has been the hardest for me to write yet. Oh, gosh, can we say draining? Rilla says that in her diary that "_All the tears that she hadn't shed all that week came then"_, so that's what I'm basing the seven days off of (forgive me if I'm wrong).

2,597 words. Holy crap. That must be my longest fic in years maybe….Whooo.

Well, please review and give me some feedback (and boy do I need it for this fic!).

Have a good day!

marzoog


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